I'm seeing people using their victimhood to control what others in the group will do.

❝In some European countries especially further north, there were two seasons, winter and summer. May Day traditionally marks the beginning of the growing season, not the beginning of spring. If the summer solstice is midsummer, that makes May Day the beginning of summer.❞

❝You know, in this day and age the term philosopher is disparaged. There are a bunch of academics debating the works of people long dead, trying to stretch writings and sayings to fit their own worldview. They argue over punctuation and the implication of what was not said in which edition. Most of the people called philosophers today are little better than research librarians. They don't think about the practical application, you see.❞

❝If you are Pagan because you need attention, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. You can't be Pagan just to be weird or to make people nervous. Faith isn't a costume, it lives and flows inside of you.❞

❝The Journey is SUPPOSED to drag you out of your comfort zone and your expectations and your perceptions and understandings. You can't walk between the worlds if you have both feet and nine fingers firmly anchored in one. The Story is told while the Journey is lived.❞

“The cauldron in fact represented a great step forward in civilization. Before men were able to make metal cooking pots, which would withstand fire, they had to be content with thick earthenware pots, which were heated by the laborious process of dropping very hot stones into them. The metal cauldron, over which the woman as head of the household presided, gave men better cooked food, more plentiful hot water to cleanse themselves, and herbal medicines which could be decocted by boiling or infused in boiling water. Hence the cauldron became an instrument of magic, and especially of women’s magic.”

❝We're not wired emotionally to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad.' We just recognize peak passion, the strongest emotions. If your peak passion is with your family and loved ones, those are the experiences you seek out. If your peak passion is because you built an amazing motorcycle, that is what you remember and seek out. And unfortunately, if your peak passion is abuse at work or abusing someone, that is what you seek out.❞

Moore put a Decalogue monument in court. At night. With very few people knowing until the next day. Moore is on record as saying that man's law is under God's law. That is not something you want to hear a judge say, especially when you don't share his religion.

❝When I finally did hear the voice of the Divine, it was female. And She was more than a bit put out that it had taken so long to get my attention. I did hear a male Divine voice too, but that was later.❞ — NeoWayland, Why are you Pagan?

I was coming off a long time of being militantly solitary and I relished the fellowship I finally allowed myself.

❝At present, books are widely available which contain the lion's share of the secret teachings that one is likely to come upon in most secret societies. Yet the lack of interest most people have in penetrating into inner realities assures that these teachings remain unperceived - and therefore 'secret'.❞ — Jay Kinney from “Human Rites and Hidden Assets”, Gnosis № 6, Winter 1987-'88

❝Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.❞ — C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

❝The penetration into the darkness surrounding God - the gulf between one's self and the All - involves the willingness to relinquish the comforting certainties of one's religion and risk heresy, if that is where the path leads.❞ — Jay Kinney from “Heresies 101”, Gnosis № 4, Spring-Summer 1987

Yes, I know the rhythm is odd. It works though.

❝Environmentalism is a political movement. It’s about controlling other people to achieve utopia. It’s about closing yourself off from the possibilities.

I don’t want to be limited by the word “environmentalism” anymore. I don’t think ecology is about saving the Earth. I think it’s about understanding how things fit and the tradeoffs we make. It’s about looking at where we were, where we are, and where we could go.❞ — NeoWayland

❝If someone has served honorably, then they should have whatever they want on their headstone up to and including Mickey Mouse. Government issue or not, it's not about what is "approved." It's about honoring someone who chose to serve and fulfilled that duty.❞ — NeoWayland

“It may sound like a cliché, but love begins at home.”

❝Yet rather than calling the earliest religions, which embraced such an open acceptance of all human sexuality, 'fertility cults,' we might consider the religions of today as strange in that they seem to associate shame and even sin with the very process of conceiving new human life. Perhaps centuries from now scholars and historians will be classifying them as 'sterility cults.'❞ — Merlin Stone, When God Was A Woman

❝The patterns we see in the universe may be nothing more than longing and human conceit. But if using those patterns gives us a desired result, then the patterns are a useful fiction. The "ultimate reality" doesn't necessarily matter or even our belief doesn't matter, if we behave as if we believe and successfully reach our goals.❞

Elections bring out some very idiotic behavior

❝I didn't have a word for what I was for years. I was the small kid who announced to his family that if there was a God the Father, it was only natural that there had to be a God the Mother too. And Mother Nature was the only one who fit the bill.❞

I usually just call this kind Gaia

❝The point is that the ‘I' part of you, the ego, gets sent out for snacks while the universe has it's way with the rest of you. The ego doesn't really know what's happening until it gets back and finds the tangle of sheets in the bedroom. And all the cushions scattered in the living room. And your naked body in the front yard. Not something your ego would have chosen, but the rest of you is pretty happy how things turned out.❞

Just because we humans don’t like a species doesn’t mean it’s not absolutely essential.

I don't think animals should be killed for ritual use. I have issues with animals being killed for food. It's why I still pray before meals. I'm honoring their sacrifice even though I know they don't understand.

You have to begin by learning. Intuition relies on knowledge and experience.

❝When I started blogging, I separated my political stuff from my pagan stuff. I did it after a lot of soul searching. It would have been so simple to wrap everything into a giant ball of victimhood and blame the world for my troubles.❞

I think too many people are into religion for the politics.

❝If that "Living Word" exists, it has to be in the hearts and souls of those people who have really embraced it. It's not in a dusty book. The verses don't matter except to show you the way. Tell me what lives behind those printed words. Tell me how you turned your sacrifice into a blessing.❞

It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear.The climate must be perfect all the year.

A law was made a distant moon ago here:July and August cannot be too hot.And there's a legal limit to the snow hereIn Camelot.The winter is forbidden till DecemberAnd exits March the second on the dot.By order, summer lingers through SeptemberIn Camelot.

This is what happens when you hit deadline and you can't think of anything to write. You bring out something from your poetry file. This started as a chant and developed into something else along the way.

How I think paganism works for me

A narrow slice of life, but now and again pondering American neopaganism, modern adult pagans & the World.

Pagan philosopher, libertarian, and part-time trouble maker, NeoWayland keeps truths alive despite a wash of nonsense. But don't be surprised when he's doing the “nekkid pagan guy” thing.
There are pagan news & opinion sites. Technopagan Yearnings is not one. It’s more like a digital binder with interesting pagan stuff. And nudity. Don’t forget the nudity.
Since Wren Walker retired the Wren’s Nest of The Witches’ Voice, there is not really a pagan news site anymore.
The Pagan Vigil Reader is a pagan news aggregator.
You won’t find porn or erotica here. I do discuss nudity & sex, but I do not describe sexual events. As a naturist I admire the human body so you will find nudes here. You will not find photos of sex. There is some art showing sex and orgasms in a ritual or mythical context.
Updated weekdays when possible, otherwise irregularly as circumstances permit and the mood strikes.
This is the fourth major version of Technopagan Yearnings. I still have № 3 on file with it’s comments. I’ll convert that bit by bit as I get the chance. This version uses
RealMac’sRapidWeaver instead of Lifli’s iBlog.